“I’ze jus’ whisperin’ to ’em: dat’s all.”
“Oh, I’ze jus’ askin’ ’em how’s all dey’re relations dat dey lef’ in de ocean.”
“Dey say it’s so long since day seen ’em dat dey forgits.”
An Irishman said: “Last night at two o’clock in the marnin’ whin I was walkin’ up and down the flure wid me bare feet on the oil-cloth wid a cryin’ child on aich arm, I cuddent help rememberin’ that me father wanted me to be a priest. But I thought I knew better than he did!”
When I was a Boy.—One Christmas Frolic.—How I Got on One Theatre’s Free List.—My First Experience as a Manager.—Strange Sequel of a Modest Business Effort.—My First Cigar and How It Undid Me.—The Only “Drink” I Ever Took.—My First Horse in Central Park.—I Volunteer as a Fifer in School Band, with Sad Results to All Concerned.
Senator Jones of Nevada, whose stories have greater influence than some other Senator’s speeches, tells of a professional “repeater” who on election day voted early and late and often for the candidate of the party which had employed him, but who, just before the polls closed, begged permission to vote once the other ticket, which was that of his own party. With similar spirit I, who have been filling a book with mention of other people, want to record a few of my occasional doings. If some of these seem insignificant, I can only explain, in Shakespeare’s words, “A poor thing, but mine own.”
My memory goes back to the day I was baptized, but the first Christmas I can recall—and Christmas is the small boy’s largest day, dawned when I was seven years old. My father and I had lived together as bachelors, so two aunts were the only mothers I ever knew. They lived at Wolcott, New York; together they owned a full dozen of children, and every boy and girl was healthy and full of fun. I always spent Christmas with them, and the first of these holidays I recall is still vivid in my mind, for I upset the whole town. My cousins and I exhausted our collective repertoires of mischief on the day before Christmas; children are usually “too serious.” Suddenly I conceived the idea of disguising myself and discovering how it would feel to be somebody else.
So I blacked my face and in other ways hid my identity until even the family dog failed to recognize me. Then I practiced on several neighbors, not one of whom succeeded in seeing more than skin-deep. Thus encouraged, I called on a young lady of whom I was very fond—and let me remind my readers that a seven-year old boy’s adoration is more whole-hearted, unselfish and intense than that of chaps who are from ten to twenty years older.